


Endothermic

by impossiblepluto



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Series, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016), Whump Mac, army days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 07:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblepluto/pseuds/impossiblepluto
Summary: An Army Days story, the desert tries to take out one of the boys, permanently.





	Endothermic

**Author's Note:**

> I just spent a week hiking through the Badlands, and I thought to myself, you already wrote about the desert actively trying to kill Mac and Jack, you can't do it again. But then I thought if one story about the desert is good, two is better, right? And wrote this by hand, on the back of my map, in the moonlight.
> 
> As always, thank you for taking the time to read this! Hope you enjoy it

It's hot.

It is so damn hot.

Sweat trickles down Jack's neck, twitching between his shoulder blades. Under his desert camo, his t-shirt is sodden, sticking to him like a second skin. 

His sniper's nest he shakes his head, Overwatch, a slight change in his job description, his purpose now strictly life-saving had shade when he selected it hours ago. Is still, even in direct sunlight, the best location to keep an eye on his charge, and it would have been fine if he wasn't partnered with the slowest bomb nerd in the whole damn army. 

He wouldn't change his assignment for anything, but that doesn't mean he's not going to tease the kid every chance he gets. It's good for Mac, keeps him out of his head, and he gives as good as he gets. 

But he can feel himself bordering on just plain cranky as the heat index rises. And Mac has let him know that his ribbing and rambling isn't appreciated today. Not after a sixteen hour day yesterday, fourteen hours the day before. It feels like they're cooking while in the humvee, or baking in the sun from before daybreak til long after dusk. 

Kid tumbled into his bunk last night, half-dressed, didn't take time for chow, and was out before Jack finished pulling his own boots off. Rousting him this morning, hair askew and blinking hard, made him look more like a teenager than a competent twenty plus year old EOD tech. But Jack needed to make sure that he didn't put off breakfast in favor for a few more minutes of sleep. As it was, Mac picked disinterestedly at his breakfast, elbow on the table, forehead resting in his hand. 

Jack licks his chapped lips. There's not enough water in all the canteens in all the world to make a dent in quenching his thirst. He'll need a couple of liters just to free his mouth and throat from the layer of dust and sand coating it. 

This is their third stop this morning, and from the steady squawking and sputtering from the radio, it sounds like today is going to be another unending day.

Mac stumbles, listing hard to the right, causing Jack's heart rate to quicken. He doesn't see any signs of a threat. Doesn't hear anything that raises an alarm.

"You good, hoss?" He asks through the comms, waiting, ever on alert. 

Mac merely raises his hand, giving a half-hearted wave in no particular direction. In case he's being observed by unfriendlies, he doesn't want to give away Jack's position. 

He needs to get the kid out of the sun for a while. It's looking to be another double digit work day, in temperatures the human body wasn't designed to withstand for long periods without a break or water. That small breakfast he coaxed into the kid was hours ago now, the sun at its zenith. Kid's probably in desperate need of some carbs and electrolytes, he's been in full sun most of the morning. If Jack's feeling this bad, Mac's got to be downright miserable. 

Mac's not the chattiest guy in their unit, not by a long shot, but he usually holds his own against Jack. Get Mac going in a full science lecture he can out talk just about anybody. He'll mumble his way through disarming a bomb, talking about chemicals and wires and Jack's picked up enough science and Mac-knowledge over the last seven months to know when he needs to worry.

And right now he's thinking he needs to start worrying. Not about the bomb, but about his partner. Mac's been too quiet these last few hours. 

He sees Mac's hand going for his chin strap, and as much as he'd love to let Mac have a moment to wipe the sweat from his face, he can't risk it. 

"Uh-uh, leave that on," Jack orders over comms.

"It's hot," Mac complains, lowering his hands back towards the bomb in front of him.

"I'd rather you cook your brain than have someone put a bullet in it," Jack replies. "You need a break?"

"I'd rather just finish," Mac says. "I'm almost done. Yes, really."

Jack smiles. He scans the area again, paying special attention to the areas he would use to launch an attack. He knows his past gives him an edge over the other guys in Overwatch. They're all perfectly competent. He'd trust them with his life. But he wouldn't trust them with Mac's life.

It's why he's sweating here, in the Afghan heat instead of the Texas heat. 

Sweat drips down his forehead and he wipes it away before it can fall, stinging, into his eyes. He knows hot. He's lucky to understand better than most the unforgiving desert, but even that's not enough when the heat shimmers and pierces his eyes. He can feel a headache brewing. He's definitely dehydrated.

The kid's face is flushed. Or sunburned, his pale complexion does him no favors in the desert. He'll need some shade time and sunscreen before they head to their next target. If that promise of "almost done" turns out to actually be on Mac-time and he doesn't finish up in the next few minutes Jack is going to make him take a break and drink something before continuing. 

"Done," Mac breathes with a sigh of relief. 

"Yeah? Great. I'll be down in a minute," Jack watches Mac gather his supplies and secure the explosives. His gait slow as he makes his way to the vehicle. Jack gives the area another scan once Mac is sequestered, then starts scrambling from his perch. 

Mac slumps into the front seat of the vehicle, staring blankly at the dashboard.

Jack reaches into the ice chest in the backseat and pulls out a still cool bottle of water. He nudges Mac's arm. Mac's hands are shaking as he accepts the water. He presses the bottle against a flushed cheek and lets out a half-groan, half-sigh of relief. It sounds almost sinful. 

Jack takes a long pull from his own bottle and echoes the noise Mac makes. "Better drink that before you start the water boiling with your body heat."

Mac snorts but followed Jack's advice. He takes a slow tentative sip from the bottle. 

They're lucky, assigned to a newer vehicle where air conditioning is piped into the armor plating, and it mostly works. Maybe ten degrees cooler than the ambient temperature of the desert, but it's a relief after the oppressive sun. 

Jack gulps down about half his bottle, while Mac is still on his first half-sip.

"You alright?" Jack frowns. Twin spots of pink continue flaming on Mac's otherwise pale face. 

"A little nauseated," Mac admits, holding the bottle to his face. "Just taking it slow." 

"You need to head back?" 

"Let me get some of this down first," Mac says taking another tentative sip. "I'll let you know." He's squinting, eyes half-closed and brow furrowed against the oppressive sunlight.

"You need to get some sunglasses, bud," Jack says, pulling his own off and handing them to Mac. "Think your boxing friend can send you some?"

Mac stares at the glasses in his hand and back to Jack. "... you mean, Bozer?"

"Yeah, whatever," Jack says. "Put 'em on. They ain't going to help if they aren't on your face."

"Don't you need them? For..." Mac gestures out the front windshield, frowning harder, "driving?"

"Nah, ain't much worse than driving my pop's old truck on the ranch in July."

Mac nods slowly. "If it gets this hot in California at least there's a breach-" he shakes his head, "a br- breeze and a beach close by."

"Sounds nice. If I make it out your way would you let me crash at your place for a couple of days?" 

"Sure, but only if you-- you can... remember B-B-Boze's name." 

Jack turns towards Mac, retort dying on his lips as Mac's head starts slumping to the right, helmet bumping lightly across the window.

"Mac? What's wrong?" 

Mac's head lolls towards Jack, eyes unfocused. He's panting, short quick inhales, groaning in pain. 

Jack reaches over, one hand finding Mac's jackrabbiting carotid. The other releasing the chinstrap of his helmet. Mac's blond hair is dark, soaked with sweat. 

"My-- my h-he-head..." He leans forward and vomits the small amount of water he managed to swallow, choking and sputtering. There's nothing more to come up and Mac is dry heaving. Tears in his eyes at the force of his abdominal muscles violently contracting. 

"Are you sick? Were you hit? What's going on?" Jack's hand cards through Mac's damp hair, prodding his scalp for injury. His mind races for answers to explain Mac's sudden illness. The kid was in his sight at all times. Unless something happened earlier today before they left the base. Or maybe that explosion that rocked them last week. He made Mac get checked out after and they said he was fine, but maybe the signs of a slow bleed would only be showing up now. 

"Mac," Jack cups Mac's cheek, to get a look at his eyes, heat radiating off his skin. 

Mac stutters and slurs, his words garbled. He tries to reach up, grab Jack's hand. His right eye sliding closed, the lid heavy.  
Jack snatches up the radio. "This is Snakebite-one- one, requesting Cas-Evac"

"Copy Snakebite-one-one, what's your status?"

"My EOD is down. Not hit, location's secure. I think he's having a stroke." 

"Copy. Sending dust off to your location now. Do you need additional support?"

"Negative. Just the dust off." 

"Roger. ETA eleven minutes." Jack throws down the radio after the last transmission. 

"Hold on, Mac, I got a bird coming. You hold on, you hear me?" Jack loosens the flak jacket, pulling Mac's arms from his sleeves. 

"C-copy," Mac pants. 

Jack is sweating again by the time he finishes stripping Mac of his gear. He grabs Mac's mostly unused and nearly forgotten water bottle and slowly pours the contents across Mac's face and neck. Rivulets marking trails down his dusty face. Mac shivers, but Jack can almost hear Mac's skin sizzling from the heat that still radiates off of him. He opens another bottle. 

"Think you can take a little in?"

Mac shakes his head, the movement makes him groan in discomfort. He pushes away Jack's hand. 

"You gotta try," Jack says. "It'll make it easier when the medics try tapping a vein."

With a grimace, Mac takes a small sip before pulling his head back. "No. Sick." 

Jack looks at his watch. "Three minutes til dustoff." He turns to peer out the window, waiting until he sees the chopper incoming before he'll start to drag Mac from the humvee.

Mac mumbles unintelligibly. He goes stiff. Arms almost straight at his sides before curling into his chest with a bruising force.

His knees knock against the dashboard. 

"Mac!" Jack yells, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the younger man, but knows better than to try to hold him still.

Mac's eyes roll under closed lids as every muscle in his body tenses then goes slack. Straining and writhing in the front seat while Jack watches helplessly.

Mac's head cracks against the window, tendons in his neck bulging. 

His teeth clench and he wheezes. 

"Come on, come on," Jack whispers, praying for the seizure to stop, for the medics to arrive. He can't pull his eyes from the scene.

As quickly as it began, it's over. Mac slumping bonelessly in the seat. 

Jack reaches out now, fingers resting on Mac's pulse point. Exhausted blue eyes open, landing on Jack and registering the safety that his presence provides before sliding closed again. 

A moment later the thwap of a helicopter alerts Jack to the arrival of help. He leaps from his seat, rushing around the front of the humvee and yanking the passenger door open. He reaches into the vehicle, pulling Mac's lanky form forward, his limbs flopping. Jack muscles Mac from the car, ducking his shoulder against Mac's middle and pulling him into a fireman's carry. 

Mac's head bumps against his back as he angles Mac away from the backwash of the rotor blades. 

The chopper lands, and a medic hops out, helping Jack to load him into the bird. Jack quickly reports the symptoms and the seizure and then Mac is whisked away from his grasp. 

He's left to watch, shielding his eyes from the sand kicked up during their take off. 

* * *

The room is as dark as they can make it, still enough light for Jack to easily see Mac, from the blue glow from the monitors attached him. He's resting quietly for now, not pestering to get out of medical, and not picking at the adhesive dressing covering the IV line. And most importantly not seizing. Jack doesn't think his heart could take seeing that again.

Jack traces the tubing back up to the IV pole, watching the drip of the slow and steady cocktail of fluids and electrolytes. A cooling blanket tucked around Mac, and a cool, wet washcloth lays on his forehead, covering his eyes. 

Jack came directly here as soon as he rolled on to the base. Tried to calm himself down before bursting into the medical unit. He was relieved when they told him that Mac was still here, they didn't have to ship him off to the nearest hospital. And more relieved when they told him he could see Mac, as long as he didn't wake him.

Jack slips into the chair near Mac's bed, content to watch him sleep for now. The doctor will round again this evening, and Jack's planning on waiting. Needs to hear first hand the damage the sun did to his partner. 

He's sipping on a bottle of water, flavored with strawberries and electrolytes, part of a care package from Bozer, yes, he does remember the kid's friend's name, the only name from his past, from home, that Mac's ever mentioned, when the lump on the bed starts to stir. 

Mac's first action upon returning to the land of the living is pulling the washcloth from his face, squinting, as his eyes rove the room. He gives a small wave when his gaze lands on Jack. 

"How are you doin', kid?"

Mac shrugs, looking around the room again.

"You with me?"

Mac nods. "They gave me valium." One side of Mac's mouth curls up in a half-smile. "Cause shivering is counterproductive to cooling measures. And the blanket is cold." He frowns slightly, picking at the blanket that covers him. 

"Better leave that there for now," Jack says, tucking Mac's hand back under the blanket. "You didn't mention you were feelin' that poorly." 

"Thought if I kept focusing I could ignore it."

"Mac," Jack's tone is warning. He's gonna have to scold the kid. "You need to take a break, drink some water, get out of the sun for a while. This could have killed you." 

"Didn't want a break, wanted to be done."

"You've gotta take care of yourself." 

"I want to be done," Mac says again. "I want to go home." His eyes are just a touch too bright as they slide closed again, surrendering to healing sleep.

"Think you're gonna get your wish, hoss," Jack says, resisting the urge to smooth the too long for regulation hair back from Mac's forehead. "They're probably gonna ship you home on the first transport leaving for anywhere." 

* * *

  
"What do you mean he's not going home? He had a damn seizure out there in the sun," Jack shoves a finger towards the door, gesturing to the desert just outside. He's quickly crossing the border into insubordination, his reputation is the only reason this conversation hasn't already landed him in the stockades.

"He's too valuable to send him home."

"Better to work him to death and let him die in the dirt."

"Dalton." His commanding officer snaps. 

Jack's jaw clenches shut so tightly he can feel his teeth crack, but he holds his tongue, breathing deeply, trying to calm himself down. If he can't save Mac from the desert, he has to make sure he's around to go out into that hellhole with him. 

His superior glances around the command post, taking in who is in HQ, who might be listening before leaning forward. "If it had been you, me or anybody else we would have been on a flight out of here yesterday. I've been informed, specifically that MacGyver is too valuable to lose. But you still have a few contacts out there don't ya?"

Jack's eyes narrow. 

Raising his voice again, the officer continues. "If I could I'd send him out of here just so I could send you with him and get you out of my hair. I about had a coronary when they told me you reupped, but that kid has mellowed you some."

A cross between a snarl and a smile twitches on Jack's lips, as he's dismissed. He's got a few tricks up his sleeve and a few favors to call in. More than one alphabet agency clamoring for his talents; he can probably get Mac out of here without selling what's left of his soul. 

Mac is frowning when Jack returns to the med center in the evening. He's still pale under his sunburn, his hands still shake. But he's awake. He's not seizing or shivering, and the cooling blanket has been replaced with a regular sheet. Jack counts it as a win, even if he's still tethered to the IV line and tugging at the sagging neckline of a too big hospital gown. 

"What's eatin' you?" Jack asks as he flops into the chair near Mac's bed. It's been a long time since he's done the bedside vigil, and even longer since he's done it once the patient's woken up. The kid has mellowed him, a lot. He heard his granddad tell stories of how Jack Jr. coming along mellowed his pop out. Jack has to refrain from visibly shaking himself after that thought. Mac's a grown man, even if he can't grow a beard and probably still isn't old enough to drink- despite what his records list as his birthday. And Jack certainly isn't his father.

"Thought maybe they'd let me out of here today, but the doc said he's going to keep me here for at least two more days. And even then he's not promising anything." 

Jack crosses his arms and makes himself count to ten before he lights into the kid. "You think that's too long?"

Mac shrugs. "I just want to get out of here."

"Yeah, well, I'd like you to not have a seizure from heatstroke while I watch but I guess neither one of us gets what we want." 

Mac starts to open his mouth but Jack interrupts.

"You know that there's nothing you can say, no come back that your big brain can think up that will make this better right now, right? I'm not even gonna give you any sympathy here. If the doctor said he wanted you here for a month I'd make you stay in that bed myself. Luckily, for you, in two days you're gonna be winging your way back around the world, heading for home."

Mac looks up in surprise. "What?"

"Medical discharge, kid. Can't be having a seizure if you're out there disarming bombs." Jack still can't believe that someone decided it was worth the risk to keep Mac in the field. Full time in the desert that tried to kill.

"They said it probably wouldn't happen again," Mac mumbles, then frowns. "Wait, the doctor said it wasn't grounds for a discharge this morning."

"Guess they changed their minds," Jack shrugs, suddenly finding the granules of sand stuck under his fingernails exceptionally interesting.

"What did you do?" Mac asks, leaning forward and swinging his bare legs over the side of the bed.

"Don't go gettin' excited," Jack says, pushing him to lay back against the pillow. "I just have some skill sets that are in high demands and some powerful people have decided that they might be wasted here in the desert. But I told them I couldn't possibly leave my dumb hamburger-named bomb nerd alone here."

"Oh," Mac says quietly.

"And they said I could bring him along if I wanted," Jack says, watching Mac's face carefully. "We've made a name for ourselves as a dynamic duo that gets shit done, and the alphabet agencies came knockin'."

"They want me to be a spy?"

"They want you to solve unique problems," Jack corrects. "If you want to, you're still getting a discharge either way, and if you can pass a physical after a few months of rest."

"Months?" Mac exclaims with dismay at the prospect of Jack hovering for months, mother-henning him, double teaming him with Bozer.

"It can take several months to recover from heatstroke. And there's a possibility of us being sent into some hot places, climate and politically. Don't need you seizing and increasing tensions."

"Like I said, they don't think it will happen again."

"Patty's got a neurologist she wants you to follow up with once we get home, just to be sure."

"Patty?"

"Our new boss. Well, probably. If you want to hear the other offers we got, that's cool, but she's the greatest clandestine operative, maybe ever, and now she runs DXS. I've heard a few weird rumors about Oversight, but I still think it's the organization we'd be happiest with."

Mac nods, slowly taking in the sudden life and career changes happening before his eyes. "I trust your decision." 

"I'm gonna hold you to that offer of letting me crash on your couch for a while when we get back."

Mac smirks. "Only if you can remember my roommate's name."

Jack smirks back. "Already told _Bozer_ when he should plan to pick us up from the airport."  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
